In World War II, the military wanted to armor their bombers to reduce losses. They studied the returning aircraft, noted where the bullet holes were, and prepared to add protection to those areas. They were completely wrong.
The Bomber Paradox
Returning bombers had holes clustered in the wings and tail sections. The logical conclusion seemed obvious: add armor to those areas.
But Hungarian statistician Abraham Wald saw what the military could not. The aircraft that returned were the survivors—they could take hits to the wings and tails and still fly home. The planes that did not return were the ones hit in the engines and cockpits.
The military was looking at the wrong data. They needed to armor the areas where returning planes did not have holes—because planes hit there never came back.
This is survivorship bias, and as David Maples explores on The Buck Stops Here podcast, it affects business decisions every single day.
Why We Worship Winners
Bill Gates dropped out of college and became one of the richest people on the planet. Mark Zuckerberg did the same. Therefore, dropping out of college leads to success—right?
Wrong. We are looking only at the survivors. We are not seeing the tens of thousands—perhaps millions—who followed similar paths and failed. The dropouts who made it are visible; the ones who did not are invisible.
This same bias appears everywhere:
- “They do not make music like they used to” — You are comparing today is thousands of releases to the 60 songs that survived as “classic hits” from an entire decade
- “They do not build things like they used to” — The buildings that were not built well got torn down; only the exceptional ones remain
- “Our marketing strategy works because…” — Are you sure that is why you succeeded, or are you attributing success to something coincidental?
The 110-Year-Old Smoker
Local news loves to find centenarians and ask their secrets. “I have smoked cigarettes every day of my life,” says Ms. Jane at 110 years old.
Should you start smoking to live longer? Obviously not. Ms. Jane is a survivor—and we cannot interview the millions of smokers who died decades earlier. Her longevity happened despite the cigarettes, not because of them.
Correlation does not equal causation. But survivorship bias makes us forget that constantly.
The Quad-A Method: Ask, Acquire, Analyze, Act
To combat survivorship bias in your business decisions, follow this framework:
- Ask the right questions—including uncomfortable ones about failures
- Acquire data through consistent, repeatable processes
- Analyze honestly, challenging your assumptions and bringing in outside perspectives
- Act on insights, then return to step one and refine
The No-BS Requirement
Here is where most analysis falls apart: we want to prove what we already believe.
Your boss wants you to validate a decision. Your marketing department wants to prove their campaigns work. Your sales team wants to attribute success to their efforts.
This is a recipe for getting mired in your own BS.
Honest analysis requires:
- Bringing in people without vested interests in the outcome
- Looking at failures as carefully as successes
- Asking whether your “secret sauce” is actually just luck
- Challenging the revisionist history we all create about our victories
Learning More from Failure Than Success
When you succeed, it is often hard to identify exactly what made it happen. Multiple factors align, timing works out, and luck plays a larger role than we want to admit.
But when you fail? The causes are often clearer. That is how I lost this client. That is how I made this bad hire. That is where the process broke down.
Looking at failures is painful. But it is often more instructive than studying success—because success can happen for reasons we do not understand, while failure usually has identifiable causes.
Three Actions to Take Today
- Inventory your data: What information is available in your company, and what are you currently acting on?
- Check for survivorship bias: Are you only looking at successes? What happened to the leads that did not convert, the products that did not sell, the hires that did not work out?
- Study your failures: Pick one recent setback and analyze it with the same rigor you would apply to a win
The bombers that made it home had holes in their wings. The ones that did not come back were hit somewhere else entirely. Make sure you are armoring the right parts of your business.
This article is based on Season 2, Episode 1 of The Buck Stops Here podcast: “Survivorship Bias, Bombers, and Why They Do Not Make Music Like They Used To.”